Keir

It hit me shortly after dinner last night. I’d been going about this Rowan thing all wrong when the signs had been there from the moment we first met.

She is me.

Rowan is the female version of me; content to do her own thing, not wanting to be tied down, not interested in being pursued.

But Rowan is also … a woman … which means they don’t always mean what they say or know what they really want half the time. There’s always a gray area, a need to read between the lines. One day their favorite color is magenta, the next day it’s shocking pink. Their minds are ever-changing, their hearts easily persuaded.

Women say men are the simple ones, but I beg to differ. Women—especially women like Rowan—can be boiled down, simplified, and made so malleable I’ll have her wrapped around my finger by the time I’m through with her.

Wearing a shit-eating smirk as I glance out the window from the back of my Cadillac, I nearly miss the buzz of my phone in my pocket as my driver heads down Pennsylvania Avenue.

“Connor,” I answer a moment later.

“You didn’t answer last night,” he says. “Just checking on you.”

“I believe I hired you to strategize my senate campaign, not babysit me.”

“When your client has a stubborn streak and unflattering history, babysitting becomes a necessity,” he says. “You think I’m doing this for my health?”

I clear my throat. “Anyway.”

“Where were you last night? Not painting the town, I hope.”

“I spent the night with Rowan.”

My response is met with silence at first, and then a bunch of muttered, nonsensical breathing.

“Why are you freaking out, Con?” I ask. “This is a good thing.”

“You slept with her.”

“So?”

“What happened to taking things slow? Forming an actual relationship? Getting to know her before jumping into bed?”

I chuckle. “I was simply giving her exactly what she asked for.”

“So she initiated it?” He doesn’t sound like he believes me.

“More or less.”

“Jesus, Keir.” His words are muffled, as if he’s dragging his hand over his mouth. “Please tell me it was consensual.”

Sitting up straight, I say, “God, yes. Connor. You think I’m that big of an imbecile?”

“I just know you drink sometimes … and you—”

“Stop.” I cut him off before he makes me fire him. “Rowan wanted a one-night stand. That’s why she didn’t want to date me. You already know all of that.”

“Right.”

“So I simply gave into what she wanted,” I continue. “And you should’ve seen the way she looked at me when we were done. Connor, I’ve got her. I’ve got her right where we need her. This isn’t a woman who needs candies and flowers and expensive dinners. She just wants … me. And she’s going to want me again. And again. And eventually, she’s going to want the rest of me. That’s how women work.”

He’s quiet, mulling over my words. “You better hope you’re right.”

“Trust me. She’s going to be calling me up by the end of the week, wanting just one more night …” My mouth pulls up at one side as I think about her soft skin, her sweet taste, and the tight clench of her pussy around my cock as I gave her the longest fucking orgasm of her entire life … her words, true story.

What woman wouldn’t want a reprise of that?

My car pulls up to the gated entrance behind 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and my driver waits for clearance.

“I’m headed to brunch with Harris and Busy.” I pull the phone from my ear and check the time. My mother’s a stickler for punctuality and I’m not in the mood to deal with her wrath should I be five minutes tardy.

“You can’t call them that anymore,” Connor says.

“I’m sorry. POTUS and FLOTUS.”

He groans, and I’m sure he’s kicking himself for not demanding a higher consulting fee when he decided to take me on.

But that’s not my problem.

“I’ll let you know when Rowan calls me, begging for more,” I tell him. “If only because I want to rub your nose in the fact that you were wrong.”

“Sounds … great, Keir.” Connor ends the call before me, and I slide my phone in an interior pocket of my suit coat as one of my agents gets the door.

Years ago, when I’d make an entrance, the staff and groundskeepers would stare as I walked in. A man doesn’t sport an aristocratically American last name and bathe himself in confidence and not command the room everywhere he goes.

But that was then.

My father’s first term.

Things have changed.

The Montgomery name has lost its luster, all of us relegated to memes and clickbait headlines. Everyone paints my mother as this demonic control freak, my father as this senile space cadet, and me as some trust fund playboy with zero aspirations.

What a fucking joke.

And Ronan. He’s the “good” one. He’s the one who chose love over power, a woman over one of the most idolized thrones in the history of man. America idolizes him for reasons I can’t quite grasp.

But I’m about to change all of that.

I’ll take back our name, become the greatest Montgomery who ever led the most powerful country in the world, and all of this other nonsense will fade away.

“Keir!” My mother rises from her seat in the Sky Parlor the moment she sees me, her arms outstretched as she glides across the room in her navy-blue power suit. “You made it.”

I pretend not to notice when she checks her watch, and her mouth flickers into the subtlest smile when she sees I’m not only on time, but four minutes early.

“Your father is outside at the grill,” she says, as if we’re just some normal family having a good old-fashioned cookout.

One of my parents’ many advisers told them years ago that they needed to have traditions, things that could be written about in history books and shared with visitors during White House tours decades from now.

So my father decided Sunday brunch would be their thing, grilling breakfast sausages and potatoes while the kitchen staff whips up my mother’s blueberry muffin and buttermilk pancake recipes … never mind that we grew up never having to go without an executive chef.

“Should I help him?” I offer, as I always do. Glancing outside, I see him wearing his signature apron emblazoned with the presidential seal, while a group of Secret Service agents keep watch around him.

“Oh, sweetheart, he’s fine.” She waves her hand before slipping it in mine and leading me to a nearby sofa. I’m always “sweetheart” and “dear” when other people are around. “I actually wanted to talk to you for a moment before we ate.”

Taking the spot beside her, I straighten my lapel and give her my undivided attention. “Okay.”

“I just wanted to see how things were coming with the campaign? I noticed you haven’t made your announcement yet,” she says. “Are you … waiting for any particular reason?”

She tugs at the gold cross necklace around her neck, sliding it back and forth across the chain as she waits for my response.

Every time I come around, she brings up the campaign. At first I thought it was because she didn’t trust me to do what needed to be done. Now I know it’s because she doesn’t have faith that I’ll even win.

Her steely blue gaze narrows, and I can practically read her mind.

She wishes it were Ronan launching a senatorial campaign.

She wishes it were Ronan preparing to carry on the family legacy.

But Ronan won’t speak to her, and she refuses to yank that ‘golden child’ crown off his stupid head, so she’s going to have to accept that I’m the only one left.

“I’ve been working closely with a strategist,” I say, straightening my tie. “He has the timing figured out. We’re just waiting on a few things to fall into place.”

My mother exhales, resting her hand across her heart. “I just need to know that you’re completely on board with this. That you understand what this means, not only for your future but for our family. For all of us. You’re going to be under an even bigger microscope. Your opponent is going to dig up every black mark on your record they can find—and unfortunately, they’re innumerable.”

She’s rambling on about all the ways I’ve fucked people over in my day, but I tune her out.

“Mother.” I rest my hand over hers, silencing her. “You need to trust me. I want this. I want this more than I’ve ever wanted anything. I’ve got it all figured out.”

She doesn’t smile. Doesn’t shrug in relief. Doesn’t take her cold gaze off me. “It just worries me, Keir.”

“What?” I lift a brow. “What worries you? That I’m not Ronan?”

Mom doesn’t respond, but her mouth is parted.

“You should be rejoicing over the fact that I’m not him,” I say, jaw clenched. “He ran off with the first girl who stole his heart, let her write a tell-all about our family, and now he pretends we don’t exist. He’s a goddamn coward. Me? I’m the only one in this family with some—”

“Keir.” My father’s voices comes from behind me, and when I turn, I see him study the two of us. A plate of grilled breakfast meat rests in one hand, his tongs in the other. “Hungry?”

Glancing at my mother, I press my lips together. I’m done with this conversation. I’m finished with the constant barrage of reminders about how I’ve failed her.

What about how she failed me? Shipping me off to boarding school at age five, military school at thirteen, college at eighteen.

She doesn’t know a fucking thing about me, how my resolve and determination are second to none.

And no one gets credit for that.

It’s all me.

Rising, I say, “Famished.”

Leaving my mother’s side, I help myself to a plate, chat up a couple staffers all to avoid my mother’s looming presence, and wait for the White House photographer to arrive to document this morning so I can get the fuck out of here.

After all, I only came for the photo op.

My father’s supporters will vote like hell for me if they think we’re a close-knit family.

I don’t say goodbye when I leave, and on my way to the car, I check my phone. Scrolling through a handful of missed calls and text messages, I release a hard breath when I don’t find Rowan’s name amongst any of them.

But if I’m right about her—and I am—she’s going to spend the rest of today thinking about last night, about my mouth on her tits, my fingers in her pussy, her hips bucking against my cock for fucking hours … and she’s going to want a reprise.

She’ll tell herself to be strong. She’ll talk herself out of it five ways from Sunday. She’ll think about me so much she won’t be able to get me out of her head, and by the time we run into each other again—excuse me, “run into each other again”—she’ll be all over me.

That’s how it always happens.

I’ve yet to know a single woman who means it when she says she only wants one night.